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Archive | July 2013

It’s Friday and it’s the last day of teen camp. I am going to miss each and every one of these children! They all brought something different to the group. And I have to say they were all very talented in their own way. I know they all enjoyed taking lots of pictures and the consensus was that close up photography was their favorite out of everything they shot.

This morning it was our field trip day and we went to a local art garden and the kids were given their assignment from me. They needed to spell out their name by searching for letters, abstract or otherwise. They did a great job and here are the results. Sammi

Lella

Stephen

Be Unique

Then it was off to Lahaska and we looked for butterflies and bees and frogs. Look what Stephen found, a frog sitting quietly on a rock in the pond.

Next we looked for Composition Rules. Here are some they found.

Simplicity

Framing

Donna, the owner of Riah Hair Studio allowed us to take some great sunflower shots in front of her salon.

Thursday was a super rainy day and it turned out to be a good thing as we had planned to do our Photoshop editing this day. So we stayed inside learning how to manipulate, cutout and place the kids photos into other pictures they found on the web. They were very excited to see the end results. Here is what they accomplished.

Sammi did a kiss pose and Lella took her portrait. Sammi then made herself kiss Harry from the band One Direction.

Next Shane was holding up a stool and cut out the stool and then inserted himself holding a helicopter in front of the white house.Then Lella took a jump pose and put herself floating in outer space.

This pose the girls did together in front of a blue screen and Lella cut them out and put them into a circus scene using Adobe Photoshop CS5, transformed them so it looked like they were on an angle balancing themselves onto the elephant, and then added a trapeze bar since her hands were up in the air when we took the shot. It’s amazing what ideas kids can come up with.

Here’s the original we shot.

Then Stephens turn, he wanted to be inside a popular game that he plays on the computer called Mine Craft.

It’s Wednesday and we started off in the studio this morning learning how to Light Paint with the kids. They all took turns, twirling the glow sticks and glo-ball and taking photographs. They learned how to accumulate light on their sensor with long exposures. Then we light painted Lella with glow sticks to outline her. Next she wrote her name in the dark with the glow ball, lots of fun.

After lunch, we ventured outside and took some Monochrome (B&W) photos by changing out Picture Style settings in the camera. Stephen took this one of us.

Here we are in the studio with the lights out and Stephen is holding the head of Lella. We did this by light painting with a small pen light.

Next it was time for some hard work, trying to capture water droplets and bubbles in mid-air and as they dropped and made a splash. It was a packed fun filled day! _________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Catastrophe by Katydid

A great day for some fun and excitement at Teen Camera Camp Week. It’s our second day. With Adobe Photoshop helping us, the kids helped me make a Super Villan out of Sammi with flames in her hair, green skin and fist power. Stephen was being jolted backwards from the crack in the driveway she created, Lella is being lifted from the lightning bolt that came out of Sammi, and we have Shane who was about to throw a bomb but was caught by Sammi’s explosive power (sounds like the making of a book). We took the photo in the driveway with the Canon 5D Mark II camera and 24-105mm f/4 IS lens and then it took us about 2 hours to create the final image.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Monday at camera camp, the Teens first day at Katydid Camera Week. They told me they learned a lot already, yippee, they paid attention! I told them we were going to learn to use the “P” mode first. Would they like to call it Program Mode, Professional Mode or Perfect Mode? They chose Professional Mode. Next they adjusted their ISO numbers according to the light they were about to shoot in. I started off teaching them how to shoot in dark inside areas so they understood how long exposures keep their shutter speeds open longer and gather light to make a proper exposure. They started having fun right away. Here’s an example by Lella

Then we went on to learning to shoot fast shutter speeds and stop action with levitation photos. They each posed for each other and I combined their picks together in one photo for them. This was lots of fun for 13 year olds but I think any age would love this.

Next, we played with closeup filters on the front of the camera lens and Shane found a bee that was totally covered with pollen. It was really cool.

A Butterfly landed and quickly took off but Stephen was able to grab it with his telephoto lens on his new Nikon DSLR.

Lella found these water drops on one of the elephant ears and used her close up feature (the tulip icon) on her Kodak Easy share compact camera.

Sammi found some bees hanging out together that were barely moving. Guess it was still early for them!

Over the weekend, I was very fortunate and got to know a family with 3 lovely children. I spent Sat. evening with them as they relaxed and got into their jammies and then the entire day on Sunday with them at their house and on the beach.

They were on vacation at the family seashore home that their grandparents owned. Dan-Dan is just about to turn 3, Zoey 5 and Alice 7. They were well behaved, especially loved their Mimi and were energetic as children are. I took some candids as they interacted with the family and then did some closeups of each individual child so they all had their special time in front of the camera.

There was plenty of sunshine coming thru the windows so I was able to shoot quietly without disturbing the natural goings-on of the day. It didn’t bother them as I was shooting in the house as they went along with their daily routine. It was good to do some photos inside, we had some nice soft window light bouncing around and the best part is it is a more controlled environment where I can get kids total attention and we all know that can sometimes be difficult. I find there are always children who won’t look directly at you even though they try to cooperate with you but if you’re patient, you will get great results.

Then it was off to the beach for some group shots of the three of them. When taking photos, I try to let them be themselves and then add just a touch of posing and lighting to their story. I don’t mind if parents help out a little but I need to stay focused and concentrate on posing, depth of field, lighting and then of course, expression! The childrens mommy was great in asking them to say some funny things that she knew were things that generally weren’t said around the house. I thought this was a great idea and there were no bad words, just words you wouldn’t want them to say at the dinner table. This session didn’t last long as most of you reading this know how bad the heat and humidity have been here on the East Coast this summer. But all in all it was well worth venturing out to the bay for photos and the kids got to see a part of the ocean they weren’t familiar with and explore.

I’ve often thought of offering my services like this to families that could afford to keep me at their residence for a few days or longer. How great would it be to really capture every day family life and all the little nuances that happen. I know parents take a lot of photos of their family today because of the digital technology, but are they present in the story? Usually not, they’re behind the camera. If you would like to share your family with me, I would be honored to photograph them. Feel free to contact me. Live life to its fullest! Warmly, Kathy Peoples

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New classes and new class times posted on our site, check them out here: KatydidPhoto.com

What’s new?
Lightroom Class 4 and 54 weeks $249 – 9/24, 10/1, 10/8, & 10/15
Learn how to use one of today’s strongest photography programs. Learn how this amazing program can cut down your work time, and make quick edits to photos faster and easier for you. Kathy will show you invaluable ways in which to speed up your workflow without leaving the program.

Beginners Digital Camera ClassDates: Tuesday 8/20, 8/27, 9/3, and 9/10 – 4 weeks$249
You will learn how to master your digital camera. Learn to understand what each function on your camera is and more importantly what it does. Not only will we explore the buttons and dials, we will cover proper exposure using ISO, f-stops, shutter speeds, depth of field, lenses, flash and composition. Discover how to stop the action of sports photos and learn how to take beautiful portraits of your loved ones. A separate weekend field trip is included to try out all your new skills.
Times: 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.

Digital Camera Part II, The Next LevelDates: Monday 9/9, 9/23, 9/30, 10/7 – 4 weeks $249
Learn how Manual works on your camera. Learn to use it to your advantage with an External flash. Flash on and off camera will be discussed and tried. Tripod shooting with flashlights, neon lights and car lights are experimented with. Macro photos with lenses and gadgets are tried out. This is a lot of hands on shooting. Equipment will be supplied for you to try out if you do not own them.Prerequisite: Beginners Digital Photography

External Flash Photography WorkshopDate: Saturday September 7th 2013 Times: 4:00pm to 8:00pm Cost: $129
Come shoot with Kathy as she will teach you how to use your flash in various modes and figure out what works best for you. She will also show how to use multiple flashes together for awesome light. You will photograph a model outside at a local park and then head back into the studio to shoot with your flash with Kathy’s guidance.
You will photograph a model outside at a local park and then head back into the studio to shoot with your flash with Kathy’s guidance.
Then to top off the night, we will review your images and do slight enhancements in Photoshop.
You will need any version of Photoshop (Elements or CS), your camera, the external flash unit(s) and your tripod (optional) .
We are going to be leaving the studio so remember to get gas and charge your flash batteries.

Photoshop Elements & CS5 BeginnersDates: Wednesday 8/21, 8/28, 9/4, and 9/11 – 4 weeks $299
Times: 6:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.
Learn Photoshop’s menus, options and tools. Crop, resize, make changes and upload images. Learn how to create layers, use control keys to make effects, transform photos, adjust all color levels and then how to flatten the layers and save your image in various formats. Katydid will show you how to make general enhancements, special effects and how to create collages. Create beautiful black and white images and learn how to colorize only parts of your image for an artistic look.

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Let’s face it…there’s all types of digital cameras and lots of ways to shoot good fireworks photos. Here are some settings and suggestions to help aid you in creating some masterpiece photos.

TIP: If you have a tripod or can borrow one, you can capture several bursts at one time on one frame of your camera. This can be a very cool look. One tip for helping to achieve easy fireworks photos is you will want to put your lens AF switch to off (autofocus) which is located generally on the barrel of your DSLR lens. Switch it to M for manual focus and set it to infinity or close to infinity if you are shooting close ups of the bursts. If you own a compact camera, you can go into the settings and find M for manual control and zoom the scale on the right side to infinity and leave it there unless you are shooting close ups of fireworks, then try to gauge where the focus should be with your eye. Some cameras will work in autofocus but most will have a hard time at it in the dark. Also make sure to familiarize yourself with how all the knobs on the tripod work before using it since you will be in the dark when shooting. Use a cable release of your 2 sec. self-timer if you do not own one.

Try these tripod settings for Fireworks…

• First Method with tripod…Manual Mode (M on top dial of DSLR camera) ISO setting at 200 ISO, Start with 1 second (comes up as 1″) and f-stop at f/8. Note that some fireworks are white, others color, some mixed, some brighter than others, so you may have to tweak your f-stop a little bit depending on the light. If they are too bright, stop down toward f/11 or f/16. If they are too dark, open up your aperture to f/5.6 or f/4.

Try to locate an area where there are no street lights or headlights in your field of vision to cut down on any glare and get the fireworks nice and crisp. If the fireworks are above water, you may want to take some pictures with a wide angle lens to pick up the reflection they will create. Also try to zoom in on some for a whole new look.

• Second method with tripod…Choose your ISO (I would start with 200 for most consumer cameras). Choose Program or Shutter Priority Mode (P, S or Tv on top dial of DSLR’s). Either of these will work. You will choose the shutter speed and the camera will do the rest for you and choose the f-stop. Try choosing slower shutter speeds by turning your wheel to the left direction. Start with 1″ sec. and go slower to capture more bursts at one time. Try going up to 10 secs. or more just to see what it does for you when there are a lot going up at one time.

• Third Method with tripod…Choose your ISO (I would start with 200 for most consumer cameras). Choose Aperture Priority Mode (A or Av on top dial of DSLR’s). Choose your f-stop. Smaller f-stops (your larger numbers) will usually make thinner trails of light. The camera will adjust for how long the shutter speed should be.

• Another option is to set your self-timer to continuous shooting and let the camera do all the work while you lay back and soak it all in. We as photographers, often miss the vastness of fireworks and only see them thru the camera lens, sometimes missing the moment of their beauty, but hopefully capturing it in our photographs.

Shooting fireworks hand held With NO TRIPOD…

• Try P, S or Tv to be in control of your shutter speed. Turn the wheel by your thumb to the right to get faster shutter speeds when needed. Try starting at 1/60 sec. and let the camera choose your f-stop. You’ll want to be in control of your ISO. Try starting with ISO 1600 and go higher if necessary. Remember the higher the ISO is set, the faster your shutter speed will go. However you do not want to go too high on shutter speeds or your fireworks pictures will be dark. Also note that as you go higher in ISO numbers, your photos will get more grainy. If you do not own a tripod, you can still get pictures, they just might not be as detailed because of the high grain. Today a lot of the newer cameras can handle the grain much better than they did in the past.